The idea was to compensate Bulgaria's lack of sufficient manual workforce and at the same time to relieve Vietnam of some of its growing population, with the trained workers potentially coming back. In practice, however, this co-operation was subject to much corruption in Vietnam, with many members of its richest class of merchants paying bribes equivalent to around €1,000 (in 1985) to be sent to Bulgaria, where they expanded their speculative business, engaging in black market trade, production of counterfeit goods such as jeans, etc. As a consequence, shortly after the democratic changes of 1989, Bulgaria arranged the accelerated return of most of the Vietnamese workers to Vietnam, effective in 1991.[2]

Of the thousands of Vietnamese, all but the students and those who had married in Bulgaria left. Since 1991, Bulgaria has been a target country for economic immigrants from Vietnam,[1] as the average wages remained higher despite the country's difficulties in the 1990s. Along with the Chinese, Koreans, Arabs and other immigrants, the Vietnamese have established a presence among the vendors in Sofia's well-known and frequented bazaar Iliyantsi.[5] The number of Vietnamese immigrants is constantly rising, although they are yet to feature more prominently in Bulgaria's social life and media.[6]

In 2008, it was widely reported and discussed that Bulgaria, now a European Union member, is again looking to employ Vietnamese workers, as unemployment in the country has been largely solved as an issue (with unemployment rates comparable to those in France or Belgium and lower than in Spain or Germany)[7] and on the contrary, there is a lack of workers in the rapidly developing building and tourism branches in particular. Vietnamese would be offered jobs on contract terms with temporary residence in Bulgaria.[8][9]